Another Drop the World Alternative Ending
by HailFirePeaks
Summary: Takes place after "Drop the World Part 2". Clare goes back to the hospital to see Eli, this time taking Adam with her. Friendship fluffiness.


Note from the author: I've never written Degrassi fanfiction. I don't even like the show that much. But I love the Characters Eli, Clare and Adam. And never have I ever been so annoyed by the conclusion of an episode, like I was with the end of "Drop the World Part 2". Degrassi writers have written some irritating endings before, but this really takes the cake. So this is my shot at writing an alternate ending for that episode. This is for you, fans of the relationship between Eli, Clare and Adam and those who were as disturbed as I was by the conclusion of "Drop the World." Hopefully you will find entertainment in this. God bless. -the author

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><p>It was already past midnight as Clare and Ali stood in a corner of the gymnasium cheerily talking about how they couldn't believe that Mr. Simpson had let the dance go on for this long without freaking out about something.<p>

Ali glanced around the gym. "Well, it looks like everybody's leaving. That was so much fun wasn't it?"

"Yes it was, and it was all thanks to us."

Clare and Ali shared a quick high five before making their way to the door of the gymnasium and into the hallway. As they went through the front door of the school, Ali stopped.

"Hey Clare, I'm not trying to bring up "you know what" again, but are you sure your ok? I know! Why don't you call your parents and ask them if you can stay at my house tonight? It'll be fun."

Clare smiled. "That's alright Ali, I'm fine. And I'm really tired anyway. But thanks."

"Ok," Ali said sounding a little unsure. "You want my brother to drive you home?"

Clare shook her head and smiled again. "No, I think another walk will do me good. See you tomorrow Ali."

"Alright then. See you."

At that, Ali and Clare parted ways as Ali went to look for her brother and Clare began her walk home. Clare had only made it about ten feet away from the school when she heard a familiar voice in the distance.

"Clare? Hey Clare! Wait up!"

Clare spun around. "Adam…" She knew why Adam had stopped her. She didn't know what to say and just stood there with her mouth slightly open.

Adam stopped abruptly from his run and almost caused himself to fall over. He stood next to Clare, speechless for a moment and trying to catch his breath. "My- my brother Drew…" he said between breaths. "Drew was at the hospital, because that Jenna girl, she- she had her baby. And he said…"

Clare looked down at her feet. She knew she was going to have to explain.

"… He said that he saw Eli there. And he was hurt really bad. What's going on? Clare, what happened?"

Clare looked up, but still avoided Adams eyes and remained silent.

"Clare! What happened?" Adam repeated desperately but Clare still couldn't speak.

"I knew it," Adams voice cracked. "I knew something bad was going to happen! He really freaked out didn't he? Didn't he? He tried to talk to me the other day. But he's been acting really weird lately, and I was scared of him, so I just told him to relax and kind of avoided him. But he was really freaked out! He said he couldn't stop feeling panicked! Please don't tell me he tried to kill himself or something! You two have been so awesome to me, and I couldn't even help a friend! This is all my fault! I- I"

"Adam stop it! This isn't your fault." Clare finally interrupted. She sighed and sat down on the curb, and Adam took a seat next to her. They both sat in silence for a moment, and then Clare turned to Adam and began to explain everything.

When Clare was done explaining, Adam sat there for a moment taking it all in and frowned. "I knew there was something really wrong after he tried to talk to me. I know you said it's not my fault. But I still feel really bad Clare. I guess I'll go see him in the hospital tomorrow… and I guess I'll go alone?"

Clare looked away and didn't say anything.

"You know, the three of us were all best friends' way before you and Eli ever decided that you liked each other like that. Nothing's changed. Right?"

Clare still didn't speak.

Adam looked at her and sighed. "I've never had much luck making friends. I was always bullied at all of my old schools. And whenever it got too bad, our parents would just transfer me and Drew to a new school. But then I came here to Degrassi. And I met you and Eli… You two are the best friends that I've ever had. We're still the three amigos, right Clare?"

Clare looked up as a sense of realization came over her. She stood up. "Come on Adam."

Adam stood up confused. "… Come on where?"

"Were going to see Eli. I'll walk you there."

"B-but it's almost 1 a.m."  
>Clare began to walk. "I'm sure Eli hasn't gone anywhere Adam."<p>

Adam followed. "That's not what I meant."

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><p>The Hospital was quiet and nearly empty. Clare briskly made her way to the reception desk and Adam followed closely behind almost stepping on the back of Clare's heels.<p>

"Hospitals creep me out. They always smell funny." Adam said and looked at Clare. "Hey, thanks for coming with me," he said with sincerity in his voice.

Clare smiled at him and nodded.

"Hey look," Adam said pointing over to a candy machine where they both saw Bullfrog trying to buy some kind of junk food.

Bullfrog looked up and smiled. "Clarabelle! Video game kid!" he said playfully pretending not to remember their names.

"How is he?" Adam asked immediately without saying hello.

The smile disappeared from Bullfrog's face as he looked from Adam to Clare. "They've put Eli in a private room so he could sleep. He might have to stay here for a few more days. He's pretty banged up but he'll be ok. Anyway, what are you guys doing here this late?"

Before either of them could answer CeCe ran up to the group and threw her arms around the both of them in a hug. "Clare! Adam!"

Clare could see tears in CeCe's eyes.

CeCe released them from the hug, stepped back and stared at both of them with a small sad smile. Clare felt the sting of tears in her own eyes. Seeing Eli's Mom had brought her thoughts of Eli as a manipulating psycho down to thinking of him more as a human being. Clare looked into CeCe's eyes and tried not to cry. "I'm really sorry about what happened to Eli," Clare chocked.

"Oh sweetie, Eli will be fine," CeCe said pulling Clare into another hug. "But what about you? How are you sweetie?"

Clare rested her head on CeCe's shoulder. "Adam and I are just really sorry," she sniffled finally letting tears flow from her eyes.

"No Clare, we're sorry. We're so sorry." CeCe said with tears rolling down her cheeks as well.

"We really do owe both of you two an apology. Especially you Clare." Bullfrog added.

"What do you mean?" Clare asked, looking up at Bullfrog.

"Well, first of all, I want to apologize on my son's behalf for the way he treated you. He made a very selfish and immature decision. And you have all the right in the world to not forgive him. But besides that. CeCe and I owe you both an apology from ourselves too. You see, Elijah has had emotional problems since he was a little kid. I guess me and my wife always thought that he would grow out of it. But I guess it took him pulling a stunt like this to wake us up. And by not getting Eli the helped he needed in time, not only did we hurt him, but we've hurt you guys, his friends."

"Were not the best parents in the world," CeCe added. "But we do love Eli very much and we promise we're going to get him the help he needs".

"That's good," said Adam.

"I think you guys are great parents." Clare added.

CeCe smiled. "We also want to thank you two. Thank you both so much for being such good friends to our Eli. And thank you Clare. Thank you for being so kind and patient with my baby boy," CeCe said pulling Adam and Clare into one last hug.

Clare felt guilt sting in her stomach as she remembered her earlier encounter with Eli in the emergency room.

Bullfrog looked at Adam, who had remained silent up until this point. "Well Adam," He said. "You've come all this way. Eli's sleeping. But you can go see him. My wife will wait out here with you if you want, Clare.

"No, that's ok," Clare said. "I want to see him too."

Bullfrog's eyes widened with surprise at what Clare said, and he glanced at his wife, who looked back at him and shrugged.

Adam and Clare followed CeCe and Bullfrog back to Eli's room.

"He's in there," CeCe said pointing into a room where the door was open a doorway. Both her and Bullfrog stopped and hung back in the hallway.

Clare walked slowly and quietly leading the way to the door and Adam followed closely behind her. They both stopped at the doorway and looked in.

Eli was in the hospital bed asleep. The head end of the bed was slightly elevated. He still wore the precautionary neck brace and one of his legs was in a cast and was elevated on a pillow at the end of the bed. In one of Eli's hands he still held the copy of the book which contained his and Clare's collaboration story that had been published earlier this week. He clutched the book tight in his fist as if he was afraid somebody was going to take it from him while he slept. The only other light in the room besides the light coming in from the hallway was from the moonlight shining through the window by the hospital bed. The moonlight made the features of Eli's face visible. Adam and Clare could see that Eli's eyes were closed and his face was relaxed. He was definitely asleep. The moonlight also made it possible to see tear stains on Eli's cheeks along with smeared blood from the cuts around his eyes, showing that he had probably cried until he fell asleep.

Adam let out a long sigh as if he had been holding his breath for a long time. "Ok, he's not as bad as I thought. Stupid Drew… he always exaggerates. I thought his face was going to be all mutilated or something… like a horror movie."

Clare smiled and rolled her eyes at Adam.

"But seriously," Adam added. "I'm glad he's ok."

"Eli really needs to sleep", CeCe said suddenly walking up behind Clare and Adam. "But he might be upset if he found out you guys stopped by and nobody woke him up. I'll leave it up to you guys I guess. Although, when I was talking to him earlier, he also said it was probably best if you two stayed away from him. He doesn't want to cause you guys anymore grief. I know he hasn't been the best friend to you two recently. He knows that. We talked about it. He said that he feels like he can't think straight lately. But he really does care about you both. I don't know if he'll have a good or bad reaction to you guys being here. But like I said, I'll leave it up you whether you want to wake him or not."

"That's ok Mrs. Goldsworthy," Adam said. "I just wanted to make sure he was ok. Come on Clare, let's go."

But Clare didn't move. She was still staring into the room where Eli was sleeping. She slowly took a step into the room.

"Clare, wait!" Adam grabbed her arm. He began to remember how scary Eli had been acting recently. "I don't think it's a good idea to wake him up. We should just go."

Clare grabbed Adam back and began to pull him into the room with her. Adam planted his feet and his shoes squeaked as she pulled him across the floor. "Come on Adam."

"Wait Clare, are you sure you want to do this? It's like his Mom said. He's not thinking straight right now. He was a total jerk to you. If you really want me to, I'll wake him up to let him know I was here. But you can wait out there, and he doesn't even have to know that you came. "

Clare took another step into the room. "Eli needs to know that ultimately, we forgive him. Even if he is crazy right now, and we can't be around him. If God forgives us, then we should forgive others."

"Your right," Adam said. "I don't want Eli to think that his friends abandoned him."

"Hey…"

Clare and Adam gasped when they heard a raspy voice just above a whisper coming from inside the room.

"Who's…?"

Eli coughed and then repeatedly blinked his eyes struggling to see who was in his room.

Adam took a breath. "Uh… H-hey Eli."

Eli tried to sit up and then winced in pain and laid his head back down on the pillow. Adam and Clare inched closer to his bed.

"You- you guys…" Eli flinched as Adam and Clare walked closer as if he thought they were going to attack him. "You guys…" Eli repeated after staring at them for a long moment.

"We're just here to make sure you were ok Eli." Adam smiled.

Eli looked at them as if he didn't understand what Adam had said. He still wasn't completely awake. "You guys… I'm sorry."

Adam smiled. "Don't worry about it."

"Clare," Eli said looking down at the book in his hand. "It's ok that you hate me."

Clare shook her head. "I never said that Eli. We're still friends."

Eli nodded and finally looked up at Clare. His eyes were glassy. "Ok. But I don't deserve friends."

"You're right. You don't." Adam said jokingly and Clare playfully punched him in the arm.

The three friends smiled and Eli relaxed and leaned back against his pillow as if for the first time considering the possibility that things were going to turn out ok.


End file.
